Texas Legislature                      Quorum Report

April 27, 2009
This has been an unusual session and it is becoming more unusual as the days pass. For instance, as of this morning, there is no notice of a Senate Education Committee hearing posted for Tuesday and the House Public Education meeting for Tuesday only has seven bills posted. For the House, there is only one week left after this one before committee reports are due on May 11th. We have four finance bills pending in the committees, two in the House (HB 1555 by Patrick and HB 3646 by Hochberg) and two in the Senate (SB 982 Van de Putte and SB 2392 Shapiro). Re: What Can Be Done?

It is important that each school district--superintendents, board members and community members call members now. We need pressure from our schools to get the bills out of committee.

Legislative Alert
CSHB 1555 was heard in House Public Education Committee week before last and was left pending. CSHB 982 was heard last Tuesday in Senate Education and was also left pending. It is important that these bills continue to move quickly through the legislative process. We need your help. FAX or e-mail House Public Education and Senate Education Committee members to let them know that you support these bills being voted favorably out of committee. Also, encourage your representative and senator to request that the full House and Senate be allowed to vote on these bills.

March 13, 2009

Re: Accountability Hearing, House Public Ed, Tuesday, March 17th
The House Public Education Committee will be taking testimony on HB 3, the new accountability bill. If you plan to attend the hearing, let me know. If you are unable to attend, let me know of your concerns with the bill. Also, let me know what you consider the strengths are. The meeting is scheduled to meet upon adjournment of the House which could be before lunch or early afternoon. The bill is 119 pages in length so it has a lot in it.

Re: Senate Education, Tuesday, March 17th
Senate Ed will take up their version of the accountability bill, SB 3 on Tuesday as well.

The committee will meet at 8:30 in E1.028. The two are companion bills. I really need your input by Monday for testimony on Tuesday. It is a good time to attend a hearing if you want to understand the intent of the bill and hear the concerns and suggestions that others have concerning the change in the accountability program.

Re: Stimulus Funding
TACS has been asked to submit testimony on stimulus funding before the House Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization Funding on Tuesday at 2:00, again, your comments and suggestions are welcome.

Re: Top 10%
A hearing was held yesterday in House Higher Education on the top 10% rule. Three bills were heard on the issue:

HB 52 (Branch) Restricted the top 10% to 40% of the enrollment

HB 156 (Woolley) Eliminated the Top 10%

HB 1676 (Eissler) Admitted the Top 10% to a school in the system--a student could apply to UT and be admitted to UT-Tyler, UT-SA or any other school in the system, but would not be automatically admitted to the UT-Austin campus.TACS submitted a position against all three bills.

Re: Today is the Last Day to File Bills
It is interesting to note that as of last night 6,146 bills have been filed. The House has filed 4,071 and the Senate has filed 2,075. That is a 20% increase in the total number of bills filed over the 5,135 filed last session. My suggestion is that a member can file no more than two bills per session---much of what has been filed is junk and will never see the light of day, but we have to be careful that some of it doesnÕt get through. TACS is tracking over 500 education related bills. It seems that everybody has a good idea about how to improve the public schools.